Rely on Reliable Plumbers to swindle you!

I made use of the services of Reliable Plumbers from January 17 in 2022 to first assist me with burst pipes in Centurion. After the bust pipes, Reliable Plumbers would also assist with renovating the bathrooms that needed to be retiled after the plumbing was relayed from my foundation to my walls. The contract was broken by the owner, Charl de Villiers on 21 February 2022. I was left with an incomplete project and not even one complete bathroom where my family and I could brush our teeth in a working basin. The reason for the ending of the contract that Charl provided was that: I had too many people "interfere with this project" that looked over his shoulder and he added in a Voice Note, that he "is not a child". This claim follows after he was caught out on lies about orders, irregularities with invoices and me expressing my dissatisfaction with his team's failure to show on several days that I stayed home from work to acommodate the team to work on site. The interference he referred to was a project manager who asked some questions a month into the project when I suspected some serious irregularities with invoicing and I realized that the owner was pretending to be two people (Charl the owner and the foreman TJ). He was constantly reffering to Charl (the owner) when on-site and when on the phone Charl whould reffer to TJ the foreman who would report to each other and even attempt to do two voices on WhatsApp. It turned out to be the same person. Unfortunately, all my suspicions were confirmed and I would have liked nothing more than to apologize to Charl if I were wrong. BUT, my project manager simply drove Charl into a corner four days prior to him breaking down and then formally breaking the contract when he was called out on lies and he had no way around misleading me any longer on technical aspects that the layman usually would wonder about; nor could he explain his way around certain aspects he tried to mask and avoid for some time.

One aspect for example that he was caught out on was an R7000 shower that was allegedly ordered and that I had to pay a deposit for as it is custom made. He made use of WhatsApp voice notes on two occasions to mislead me and the project manager where Charl pretends to speak to a person he ordered the shower from and then right after he speaks to this person, he "accidentally" posts the voice note to my or my project manager's WhatsApp. He would then say: "Sorry, that was not meant for you" so that we would think he is still organizing the shower I paid a large deposit for. I could confirm these as lies later when he finally gave up the alleged supplier that he claimed to have spoken to several times.

Reflecting on the project, all was ok the first two weeks, until I realized that Charl was trying to mislead me with a R12000 quote when he was still bussy demolishing and plumbing bathrooms (in other words the pipes I payed thoudsands for was not even done), when he claimed that the pipes in my roof would also need urgent replacement and that this is a further 70meters of copper pipes. He made this claim without even looking into the roof and he was not even on the premises at the time. According to him he would not be able to connect the new copper pipes of my bathrooms to the "galvanized pipes" in my roof as water damage would be sure to follow "soon". When I refused the quote he dropped it to R9200 in one minute without a calculation and mentioned how little the profit is, but that at least I will have the reassurance of good plumbing. I was "encouraged" to act very fast and pay the full R9200 as soon as possible for pipes to be collected by him that very week. I knew something was off when he did not even calculate a single thing to drop the price and I did not see the pipes I already paid over R 20000 for at that point already with very slow progress on the actual replacement of plumbing and only half-day or three hous of work by the team at a time.

I, therefore, got three independent contractors to confirm this "disaster" he was predicting without telling them what I was told. It turns out that all three of the contractors could not understand why I wanted to enquire about the replacement of the pipes in my roof that were already halfway copper and the other 34meters were relatively new galvanized pipes in a very good condition. The going rate of that job if it were to be done is not more than R 6000. The pipes were in good condition and the place where the new pipes needed to be connected was fitted with copper already.

So, indeed, I got a project manager as all trust was broken at this point. I realized I had contractors on my premises where the owner pretends to be two people, overcalculates on a quotation to make money and/or to cross fund projects, underdelivers when it comes to timeline, does not keep promises on detailed invoices and home and a team member had an annoying habit of throwing cigarette stumps in my garden and driveway. I know this latter may sound petty, but to me, it displayed something about their respect for the property of others. I did not end the contract then, even though I wished I could, as he had all my money already including the deposit for the shower and at the time he did not give up the supplier's name! It was not a nice experience and therefore the project manager who would have assisted with a next project in my home from 14 February onward, stepped in earlier to make the project less emotionally straining on BOTH parties. If Charl had nothing to hide, the project manager would not have been a threat.

I am so sorry that I only saw a similar review on this business on HelloPeter too late because I too had the same experience where I asked for the invoices to claim from insurance. He did provide invoices for payment of course, but I asked for a more detailed invoice (particularly the one I needed to submit to my bank for insurance purposes) and I picked up several issues for example R7250 for PVC pipes used for outlets for two standard bathrooms which probably should have been R725 at most. He admitted his mistakes every time on confrontation, but simply never reconciled invoices or reimbursed as he promised. Not even after a letter from my lawyer (sent two weeks back). On HelloPeter another writes about himnot returning to complete jobs and this Modus Operandi of not delivering invoices even though he promises to do so.

Charl de Villiers of Reliable Plumbers left me with an unfinished job, took A LOT of my money that the insurance will probably not pay, tried to mislead me with his real identity, promised to reimburse me, and simply never did. He is not a registered contractor as he claims to be, he does not deliver invoices that are above board as he is required to do and I am posting this to warn people that he should not be trusted!

Please learn from my mistake and stay away from Reliable Plumbers!